Saddle up with the promotion Posse

I've been a proud member of Sunny Frazier's Posse for the past five years and I'm very grateful to her for teaching me about promotion and for guiding me along the way. I've asked her to tell us about how and why she formed the Posse.

   It was a simple idea, really. I began learning (and loving) promotion early on in the Internet age. As I watched others struggle, I wondered why should they beat their head against the wall trying to navigate all the information out there? I mean, I’d already done that and had it under my belt. I was linked to lots of sites that fed information to me without any work on my part.

   Perhaps it was hubris that had me announce “I can take 5 years off your writing path if you just blindly follow my instructions.” I didn’t know if that statistic was right, I made it up off the top of my head. The message was, even if you don’t understand everything you read right now, trust me—it will all fall into place.

   Understand, these weren’t my ideas, they were culled from all the sites coming into my computer. I eliminated blogs that didn’t really add anything to our collective knowledge or were a time-waste. I sought information that could boost a person’s career.

   There was a secondary requirement: members had to go over to sites where fellow Posse members were blogging and add their two cents. It was a subversive move. Suddenly, that site had dozens of comments. Posse members were a valuable commodity for site owners. We identified ourselves as Posse and people realized we were a force to be reckoned with. I was even getting requests to “send the Posse over.”

   About a month ago, I developed a FB page for the Posse. I invited the 87 members and then opened it up to everyone. There’s no charge, everyone contributes and we still support wherever one of us is posting. However, I started doing a Round-Up every Friday listing all the topics discussed that week. It gets posted all over the Internet. I also found fun Western photos to illustrate the posts.

   Why the “Posse?” It’s a tip of my cowboy hat to the fact that I worked for the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department and yes, we have a Posse. They ride horses and go into the rugged foothills to locate lost hikers. While the San Joaquin Valley of California isn’t exactly the “Wild West,” we do have rodeos and cowboys. It’s an image that works as we “ride together” to promote.  

  

Sunny Frazier

 

Sunny Frazier writes the Christy Bristol Astrology Mysteries, set in the Central Valley of California where Sunny lives. A military veteran (Navy, Vietnam Era), she worked for 17 years with the Fresno County Sheriff's Dept., 11 of those years as Girl Friday for an undercover narcotics team. Her books are based on real cases and real places from those days--as well as a bit of astrology, which she's been doing for 45 years. Her character, Christy, has her own Face Book page where she doles out astrological tidbits and Sunny is the head honcho of the Posse, an intra-promotional Face Book group for writers.  

Books 2 & 3 of the series can be purchased on Amazon or at Black Opal Books. Book 1, "Fools Rush In" will be reprinted later this year. 

 

More Than One Road To Travel

My guest this week is fellow author and good friend, Marja McGraw. She has some very interesting things to say about her decision to self-publish the books in her two mystery series.

"When I started writing, my friends and family, of course, told me I had talent. What else were they supposed to say? After all, they were just that – friends and family. Someone sent me an article about a self-publishing company. I’d never heard of such a thing and jumped right on it. I knew nothing about finding a traditional publisher.

The first thing I discovered was that there was a stigma attached to being self-published. I wrote a third book and had learned a little about traditional publishing, so I started submitting the manuscript. I read somewhere that whether or not your book is accepted or rejected sometimes depends on the reader’s mood that day. Without going into a long story, I discovered the truth in that statement, and I moved on to other publishers.

Oh, joy, my book was accepted, and so were the next four. One of my Sandi Webster Mysteries led to a spinoff series, The Bogey Man Mysteries. I decided to go with a different publisher for the second series. The series was accepted and I was on my way.

Then things began to change. I learned more about the business and realized I wasn’t all that happy on my current path. The two publishers wanted to take one road, and I wanted to take another. We couldn’t seem to get past that fork in the road. At least, I couldn’t.

It was time to make a difficult decision. I was able to cancel all of the contracts with both publishers, do a slight rewrite on the books, create new book covers, and before I knew it I was back where I started, in a manner of speaking. I re released all of the books by self-publishing them. Self-publishing had changed and there were more opportunities for me.

One drawback was that now I had to do all of my own promotion and marketing. Honestly, even with traditional publishers I was doing most of it anyway, so I guess it’s actually a non-issue.

The books have been doing fairly well and by the time I left the traditional publishers I had a fan base in place. That helped a lot. I wasn’t coming out of the blue with readers wondering who I was.

One last point I’d like to make. I’ve discovered that if you had a traditional publisher in your past, the stigma seems to disappear to a great extent.

Would I recommend self-publishing to other writers? No. Each writer has to make up their own mind. I can’t offer any advice. I know that I’ve been happy since I became my own boss. I’m in control, or out of control as the case may be, and I made the right choice for me.

Take your time and don’t make a sudden decision. Research and decide what’s right for you. Follow the road that makes you happy with your choice of career."

To read more about Marja's books and/or to order them:
http://www.amazon.com/Marja-McGraw/e/B003U7L3R4/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1459722522&sr=1-2-ent

Marja McGraw was born and raised in Southern California. She worked in both civil and criminal law, state transportation, and most recently for a city building department.  She has lived and worked in California, Nevada, Oregon, Alaska and Arizona.

 

She wrote a weekly column for a small town newspaper in Northern Nevada, and conducted a Writers’ Support Group in Northern Arizona. A past member of Sisters in Crime (SinC), she was also the Editor for the SinC-Internet Newsletter for a year and a half.

Marja writes two mystery series: The Sandi Webster Mysteries and The Bogey Man Mysteries, which are light reading with a touch of humor. She also occasionally writes stories that aren’t part of a series.

Marja says that each of her mysteries contains a little humor, a little romance and A Little Murder!

She now lives in Washington, where life is good.